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Scottish Government expertise to support A&E

The Scottish Government have agreed with NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde to offer the South Glasgow University Hospital additional expert support to help improve waiting times in accident and emergency.

Health Secretary Shona Robison said that, as of yesterday, expert support from the Scottish Government would help NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde establish and embed improved management systems to ensure the smooth transfer of patients through the emergency department.

While the number of long waits in A&E in Glasgow has fallen substantially compared to last year, statistics published yesterday show that 78.3 per cent of patients were seen and treated within four hours at the South Glasgow University Hospital.

The Health Secretary said that while a dip in performance was likely during the first few weeks of the migration, NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde is keen to ensure that all learning from across the NHS in Scotland is applied to achieve the improvements required.

Ms Robison said: “The transfer of services across to the new South Glasgow Hospital has been one of the largest and most complex operations NHS Scotland has ever undertaken. This is one of the largest hospitals in Europe – it replaces out of date facilities across Scotland and it will transform the care we provide for patients.

“Given the scale of the task, the migration over to the new hospital has gone extremely smoothly with all adult and children’s moves completed on schedule. The staff of NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde must be commended for that.

“Planned and scheduled services are operating very well and in some places, outperforming the rest of the country. Similarly long waits in accident and emergency have reduced significantly on last year. This represents considerable progress already.

“However, performance against the four hour target in accident and emergency has dipped and is some way off the national average. We always expected there to be some initial challenges around performance as staff from all three sites got used to working in their new environment, however in the interests of patients in Glasgow, we have agreed with the board to offer the considerable expertise in unscheduled care at our disposal.

“I have been receiving daily updates and the Unscheduled Care team at the Scottish Government have been in regular contact with the board. This move will put in place further on-site support to help the existing teams embed their practices and take forward work to implement the six essential actions for unscheduled care.

“It is important to remember that the service moves to the new hospital are only just complete and hundreds of staff are still coming together from different hospitals and adjusting to new working arrangements as well as new layouts and processes. I visited the South Glasgow University Hospital earlier this month and was impressed with the enthusiasm and dedication of all the staff there – and in particular their commitment to working together to deliver the best possible outcomes for patients in the Greater Glasgow and Clyde area.

“This additional Scottish Government support will assist staff in making the sustainable, long-term adjustments that should see the South Glasgow University Hospital steadily improve their performance against the four hour target, and sustain the reduction in long waits we have seen.”

Notes To Editors

Across Scotland, over the week ending Sunday the 7th June 2015

• There were 24,821 attendances to Scotland’s 30 Emergency Departments.
• The proportion of attendances to those 30 Emergency Departments that were seen and subsequently admitted, transferred or discharged within 4 hours was 92.6%.

The full statistical publication can be viewed on the ISD Scotland websitehttp://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Emergency-Care/Publications/index.asp#1428